Free agent first baseman Miguel Sanó will host a showcase for interested clubs next Tuesday, repots Darren Wolfson of SKOR North (Twitter link). That marks the first update on the 6’4″ slugger since the Twins bought him out at the beginning of the offseason.
Sanó is searching for a new team after 12 years in the Minnesota organization. Praised as a prospect for his prodigious power potential, he’s shown middle-of-the-order upside at his best. Sanó has four 25-plus homer seasons on his résumé, including 34 longballs in just 105 games in 2019. The Twins signed him to a three-year, $30MM extension after that monster year.
That extension didn’t go as the club envisioned. Sanó’s longstanding strikeout concerns peaked in 2020, when he reached base at just a .278 clip while going down on strikes almost 44% of the time. He rebounded with a 30-homer season in 2021, albeit with a slightly below-average .312 OBP. Sanó’s last season in the Twin Cities was a disaster, as a pair of right knee injuries limited to just 20 games and 71 plate appearances of .083/.211/.133 hitting. He didn’t play after July 29.
It’s clearly not the manner in which the former All-Star envisioned testing the open market for the first time. He’s a bounceback target for teams seeking to bolster their first base depth. He’ll be limited to a low base salary on a big league deal at best and it doesn’t seem out of the question he may need to accept a minor league contract with a non-roster Spring Training invite.
Sanó turns 30 in May and has a career .234/.326/.482 line over parts of eight MLB campaigns. An extreme three-true-outcomes hitter, he’s walked at a quality 11.6% clip and struck out at a massive 36.4% rate while averaging 34 homers per 600 plate appearances (roughly the equivalent of one season of playing time).
Sanó is one of a handful of buy-low first basemen still lingering on the market. Former AL batting champ Yuli Gurriel and MLB home run king Luke Voit are also looking for bounceback opportunities after disappointing 2022 showings, while multi-positional players like Mike Moustakas and Donovan Solano also have ample first base experience.
